According to shipping sources cited by Reuters, American explorer Occidental (Oxy) and South Korean firm KOGAS are taking receipt of their first respective cargoes of crude oil as payment in kind for the development of Iraq’s Zubair oilfield.
A vessel is reported to have left Basra port on Sunday carrying 1 million barrels of Basra light. Occidental received 600,000 barrels and 400,000 barrels went to South Korea’s KOGAS, shippers said.
The average selling price for Iraqi crude for July was around $108, a source at the Iraqi state oil company Somo told Reuters.
The vessel Olympic Legend also left on Sunday from the Basra oil port carrying 2 million barrels of Basra light crude for China’s CNPC, one shipper said. CNPC has been developing the Rumaila field with BP, which likewise met its 10% uplift target in December.
The project in Zubair is expected to produce approximately 6.4 billion barrels over a 20-year period, according to Kogas.
Oxy and KOGAS are in an Eni-managed consortium partnering with the South Oil Company of Iraq to develop the giant Zubair oilfield near Basra in the south. In December 2010, the consortium partners announced that they had achieved and sustained a 10-percent increase in oil production at the Zubair Field, the first production milestone under contract.
